My Gripe with 4th Ed.

[sarendt]

Isn't a troupe of the martial arts genre (e.g. Drunken Master, Karate Kid, hell, Dragon Ball Z even) that the fighty guy has to go on a quest to find a mentor or teacher to teach him that new ultimate technique?  I'd think 4th ed would make this style of play even easier.

I guess that is a good way to think about it... 

How would you determine which abilities they would have to quest over?  You could just make up something, like you could have a new at will that does X...  but isn't all the ones in the book balanced (I think) already and thus you should have no need to do this?

[Tadanori Oyama]

You didn't "need" to do it in 3rd Edition either.

[Murph]

I could see this working in a campaign if it was handled this way (remeber steal from the best, leave the rest).  Let everyone have there normal power progression.  At some point they're off adventuering and they hear rumors of something evil.  They return home to find the temple/the school/the town/the frat house destroyed.  They hunger for revenge (hopefully), but a wise old NPC tells them they arn't ready yet and they should seek training at this far away location.

Basically give them the normal power progression, but after they complete their training, allow them to create a new daily power all their own.  Perhapse pick a level and say nothing more powerful than any of these.

Basically, I'm saying it not a good idea to take stuff away from PCs that they expect to have.  You'll have better results from making them work harder to get better than normal

[Dogfish]

I think a lot of the balancing complaints about thrid edition got fixed and fleshed out not by a change in errata and splat book classes and feats but by the increasing wealth of monsters to fight. This allowed a GM far more options in what to throw at their party with a little bit of work. However what 4th edition has done well is make monsters an incredible malleable resource of the dungeon master. They have also made damage significantly more uniform. What this means is that it is far more easy to make encounters more balanced even if the character classes aren't. I think a DM that puts a lot of effort into their encounters in 3.X could achieve this same result but it would require a lot of reading to know the full ability of each little spell-like ability etc.

I have to say that I am not a fan of 4th. Ed. I think the combat heavy focus in the books (compare player handbooks of 3.5 and this and tell me how many pages have a combat dedication) just leads new DMs down a dark path to rail-roading. Now this may seem like a bit of a leap but let me explain. You need to plan encounters thoroughly in 4th ed. There is no escaping this fact because of the greater amount of 'tactics' and wargaming involved in how the combat mechanic works. This means a DM has already invested an awful lot of time into something that, with a good story and an intelligent party, could be avoided completely. However, in my experience, what ends up happening is that these new DMs find they can make the exact combat encounter they want time after time...so they want every single one to be played. Ultimately this will cut into the story and player options.

This isn't to say that I don't think a good party, led by a good DM could easily overcome this problem. I'm trying to approach the 'problem' from the point of view of someone new to the game, which could simply be someone used to playing other systems because they never 'got' D&D or someone new to role-playing all together.

As an analogy. Many podcasts back Tom read a letter written by his mate about a new guy that joined a hopeless pirate campaign. A kid had in his spare time wrote up a nautical druid. This kid then in battle with another ship poly-morphed into a dolphin, swam over to the enemy ship and then proceeded to cast wood warping spells at the hull. Now the fate of this player is a sad one and shows a 3.5 flaw. However you show me how you could show that ingenious turn of logic in 4th ed. The only ritual cast in the 30+ New World campaign games is the water ritual which was plot centric. These rituals were supposed to do what the wizard (etc.) bag full of tricks would do in 3.5 but they never get used. The reason for this is obvious, they are dreadfully implemented.

Well of this went on longer than expected, this I guess is my gripe with 4th Ed.

[malyss]

Nice post Dog.

I love what they have done with monsters in 4e in a lot of ways. I actually use their method in my pathfinder games (stat block? what's a stat block? This monster has +5 to hit, does d10 damage and has 20 hitpoints - deal with it - I don't care what his con is - that just slows me down!)

I do like 4e. I don't think it is the second coming or anything though. At any rate, there is room for both games in my life, and I take from one and give to the other to suit my players and my stories.

It's kind of like your kids - you love'em both, but they are different and good in their own ways, and whiny and shouty in others...

[rayner23]

4e is for me.

I ran 3e for awhile and I didn't quite get it for some reason. 4e streamlined things and while the focus may seem to be on combat, I think that is just because combat is so easy it makes it seem like the game is geared toward it. I couldn't disagree more, however.

New World has plenty of sessions that are all role-playing sessions with ZERO combat. This might be because we aren't rookie players, but I like to think because the system is so well-built, we are able to get into it more.

[Setherick]

4e is for me.

I ran 3e for awhile and I didn't quite get it for some reason. 4e streamlined things and while the focus may seem to be on combat, I think that is just because combat is so easy it makes it seem like the game is geared toward it. I couldn't disagree more, however.

New World has plenty of sessions that are all role-playing sessions with ZERO combat. This might be because we aren't rookie players, but I like to think because the system is so well-built, we are able to get into it more.

There were a number of good role playing opportunities in 3e, but the skills were overbalanced especially at high levels.

[Murph]

To be fair, I'm not satisfied with the skills in 3.x or 4th, or any D20 system for that matter.  My preference tends to lean to those systems that abstract it a bit more.  I don't think I've found a mechanic heavy skill system I've been satisfied with.

[Tadanori Oyama]

To be fair, I'm not satisfied with the skills in 3.x or 4th, or any D20 system for that matter.  My preference tends to lean to those systems that abstract it a bit more.  I don't think I've found a mechanic heavy skill system I've been satisfied with.

Have you tried one of the systems build entirely around skills? Shadowrun and World of Darkness both put their skill pools at the creamy center of their systems.

Combat skills are handled, by and large, the same as every other skill.

[malyss]

To be fair, I'm not satisfied with the skills in 3.x or 4th, or any D20 system for that matter.  My preference tends to lean to those systems that abstract it a bit more.  I don't think I've found a mechanic heavy skill system I've been satisfied with.

Have you tried one of the systems build entirely around skills? Shadowrun and World of Darkness both put their skill pools at the creamy center of their systems.

Combat skills are handled, by and large, the same as every other skill.

I think Tadanori is making a very astute observation here: D&D (all forms) segregates combat from adventure. The storyteller system is more integrated in this aspect, and from when I played it, treating combat just like a skill was actually a very natural extension. The character creation is also very open to specialization or generalization.

Good insight... makes me want to try a medieval storyteller game in the tone of d&d. Ack, that sounds like work is involved - skip.

[Maze]

I have to say that I am not a fan of 4th. Ed. I think the combat heavy focus in the books (compare player handbooks of 3.5 and this and tell me how many pages have a combat dedication) just leads new DMs down a dark path to rail-roading. Now this may seem like a bit of a leap but let me explain. You need to plan encounters thoroughly in 4th ed. There is no escaping this fact because of the greater amount of 'tactics' and wargaming involved in how the combat mechanic works. This means a DM has already invested an awful lot of time into something that, with a good story and an intelligent party, could be avoided completely. However, in my experience, what ends up happening is that these new DMs find they can make the exact combat encounter they want time after time...so they want every single one to be played. Ultimately this will cut into the story and player options.

Plan? Encounters? Although I might agree that WoTC's approach to D&D is far from most gamers' ideals, I don't think planning encounters is an issue, you just pick monsters in the XP range of the players and have at it. I don't even look it up in advance.

Like malyss, I quite like the fact of not having to spend half an hour putting stat on monster. Most of them were created by wizards anyway, why would they be bound by the rules that apply to humanoids?

I think what makes it 4E good, can also be one of its main problem. Encounters are usually fun and quick to make, but in a story-oriented game, they need meaning.

I'm playing two 4E games right now, both of them I'm both player and DM as we alternate. In one, we're empty shells of characters who fight monsters after monsters. It was what we agreed to do from from the get-go and we're having fun seeing how unkillable our characters are.

In the other, all our characters have backgrounds with various relationship and we have our personal goals. It's quite fun when we further along our own goals or the others, but then you have one of the DM go: "A dwarf arrives in the room (interrupting our RP), he's quite beaten up. He needs help fighting some monsters that appeared in ruins about a day from here!"

[Murph]

To be fair, I'm not satisfied with the skills in 3.x or 4th, or any D20 system for that matter.  My preference tends to lean to those systems that abstract it a bit more.  I don't think I've found a mechanic heavy skill system I've been satisfied with.

Have you tried one of the systems build entirely around skills? Shadowrun and World of Darkness both put their skill pools at the creamy center of their systems.

Combat skills are handled, by and large, the same as every other skill.

I actually take the opposite view here.  Combat and skills should have nothing to do with each other mechanically.  I played in a long running Shadowrun campaign, and while the dice pools were a nice way to smooth out the rolls statistically, I don't think combat and skills should be connected at all.  Basically you force the player to make a choice between being optimized in either combat, or outside of it.  Mostly likely, someone is going to optimize one way or the other, so taking the middle ground is the quick road to irrelevance in either situation.  For example, in the Shadowrun game, our street samurai troll pretty much handled combat with the help of the mage.  Then when a social situation came up, the face did all the rolling, and when we had a hacking issue, the hacker did all the rolling.  

Shadowrun is really a good example of bad balance.

That said, a 4th ed game with Shadowrun type skills tacked on for the skill system might be neat

[Tadanori Oyama]

Shadowrun takes a ballistic approach to class balance because it doesn't have classes. Nitch protection of in game roles is in massive force between the real world, the Matrix, and the Astral world. Without a mage, you can't work Astrally. Without a hacker or a Technomancer (or a Desker, depending on your edition), you can't work in the Matrix. I'm not defending that approach in the least. I just love shotting guns.

But what's you're describing as the goal is the d20 skill system: virtually disconnected from combat mechanics. Is it just that the specific skills don't appeal to you, or is it the implimentation of their subsystem that you don't like?

[Murph]

Shadowrun takes a ballistic approach to class balance because it doesn't have classes. Nitch protection of in game roles is in massive force between the real world, the Matrix, and the Astral world. Without a mage, you can't work Astrally. Without a hacker or a Technomancer (or a Desker, depending on your edition), you can't work in the Matrix. I'm not defending that approach in the least. I just love shotting guns.

But what's you're describing as the goal is the d20 skill system: virtually disconnected from combat mechanics. Is it just that the specific skills don't appeal to you, or is it the implimentation of their subsystem that you don't like?

I dislike the implementation, basically, because the system doesn't really support degrees of success or failure easily, and in a few levels, a task that is an automatic win for one PC is an auto failure for another.  I also really dislike armor check penalties  I know they're "realistic" but this is a fantasy game.  You never see the heroic knight stop and take off his armor to climb a rope in a movie.  He just does it.

[Tadanori Oyama]

I agree with that assessment. What your describing sounds like Shadowrun's divided worlds. Not exactly the same. I present the follow:

If combat and skills are completely seperate systems, like they are in d20, and the skills are detailed enough to model degrees and other details, than you likely end up with two separate "games", which people will or will not play depending on their character. Shadowrun, for example, has seperate rules for Astral play (including Astral Combat) and Maxtrix play (including Matrix combat). It is, effectivally, three seperate games.

It's not a perfect example since each of the Shadowrun rules functions physically different, ergo combat and basic interaction rules are also very different, but I use it in a vague sense to make my point.